Her Private Obsession
by Kokorozec
Summary: A fluffy one-shot I made for Valentine's day. Penny is home alone for the first time in ages, giving her a perfect opportunity to vent her love for Gumball in private. Takes place before The Shell, in case it wasn't obvious.


**A/N: Happy Valentine's Day everyone! First, I'd like to apologize for a lack of updates on Empathomorphosis. I PROMISE that a new one is coming in a couple days, hold your horses. Second, and more importantly, I'd like to dedicate this little to story to my significant other, who was the original reason I started writing fanfics in the first place. May you serve as an inspiration to keep on living and writing for as long as possible. I love you~**

"Moooooom, I'm home!"

Penny Fitzgerald paused briefly, waiting for a response that never came. Strange. The house was rarely ever this quiet. Her mother could always be counted on to greet her as she came home from school, and failing that Penny would at least hear the tv blare with bad jokes and/or news. The deer poked around a few corners, half expecting to find her family hiding behind them, but to no avail.

She did a double take, checking around the house again just to make sure. As it turned out, the antlered peanut's eyes did not deceive her. No mother lounging on the sofa, watching sitcoms of shoddy quality with overused laugh tracks. No father in the kitchen, reading a newspaper and grumbling about stock options or something like that. There was not even a sign of her seemingly omnipresent little sister Polly, who was usually preoccupied with having her stuffed animals battle on the base of the stairs, requiring everyone to carefully step over the obstacle. For the first time in what felt like forever but was actually probably only a couple of weeks, Penny Fitzgerald came home to an empty house. As the implications of this sank in, she began smiling ever wider and her eyes practically sparkled. It was the perfect opportunity for her to engage in something very private…

"Hehe…good thing I didn't have any after-school plans," she said to herself, not worried about anybody overhearing, "because it looks like I've got myself a few hours of _PENNY TIME!"_

With a newfound sense of elation and energy, Penny quickly rushed up the stairs into her bedroom and slammed the door shut. She was in such a hurry that she almost tripped at least twice, but that didn't bother her. No, she had time to herself, and nothing was going to ruin it. Unfortunately, the computer was off, meaning that she had to wait a full minute and a half for it to fully load up and have functioning internet. Angered by this inconvenience, she paced around the room as she waited for it to load, counting every second that ticked by.

After what seemed like forever, right when she had half the mind to start yelling at the computer to "motivate" it, Penny heard the joyous "ding" that came from her machine having connected to the internet. It may has well have been the trumpets of rapture, because the peanut leaped into the air towards her source of joy, utilizing the anti-gravity skills that came with being a cheerleader to carefully land her butt in the chair. She glanced behind her one last time, just to confirm that there was, indeed, nobody to disturb her "Penny Time".

With a flash, the smitten teenage girl zoomed the cursor down to the google chrome logo, double clicking with all the speed and force that she could muster. Mentally cursing every second wasted for the tab to pop up, she hurriedly clicked on the address box and typed in the fateful words, the site where she would find all the joy she could possibly need. Pure ecstacy in video format.

A flood of messages popped up, from new videos from her subscriptions, to messages from friends, to whatever the "trending" thing was at the moment. She ignored it all. That junk could wait for after Penny Time, thank you very much. However, one of her subscriptions did end up catching her eye. Not because it had a new video or anything, but because of who it belong to. A certain bluish cat who was in her class. A boy she'd been in love with since elementary school. Gumball Watterson.

She clicked on a random video and it instantly blared to life, featuring the boy of her dreams and his adopted goldfish brother front and center, as per usual, with some strange pillow device next to them.

"On today's episode of _Bro, Have You Ever Wondered?_ " the azure feline announced, radiating with enough pride and sense of accomplishment that it could be felt on the other side of the screen, "Darwin and I have achieved the impossible. The next step in human development. I speak of course of…Darwin, isn't there supposed to be background music here?"

The goldfish sidekick's eyes widened as he realized the enormity of his error. "Uuuuh, what music?" he asked, feigning ignorance.

Gumball pinched the bridge of his nose. "Goddamn it Darwin, I gave you ONE JOB, to set up the background music, and you couldn't even do that. How are we supposed to-"

The video abruptly cut, returning to a recreation of the beginning of the episode, only this time with background music that was probably lifted from that one action movie. "Ahem!" began the cat, with slightly less enthusiasm than before. "Today on _Bro, Have You Ever Wondered?_ , we have achieved the impossible. The next step in human development. I speak of course of…" he gestured to the large pillow-esque thing in the center of the video, "the world's largest woopie-coushin!"

Penny squeed with delight. She'd seen this video, as well as all of Gumball's other videos, at least a dozen times before, but she didn't care. She could watch them a thousand times and they would never lose their charm. For that moment, this was what Penny lived for.

Gumball, of course, wasted no time in launching himself on top of his creation. Landing with a splat, the coushin immediately began doing its job, producing a prolonged raspberry that blew directly in Darwin's face. From what Penny could tell, the remaining 15 minutes of the video involved the two of them jumping up and down on the giant pillow in an effort to get the rest of its "farts" out. Unfortunately, the object of her desire was out of focus for the rest of the video, prompting her to click on another one, one that she knew featured her Gummypuss front and center.

"Big McLargeHuge vs Butch Ironback" was one of Gumball and Darwin's independent "films", and the quality was about what one would expect from two twelve year olds. It was five minutes long, and entirely consisted of Gumball and Darwin wearing silly costumes and dueling with sticks that were apparently supposed to be lightsabers. Most folks would have either begun laughing out loud or cringing themselves into oblivion, but again, Penny didn't mind at all. As long as she could see Gumball on the screen, she was content…

A part of her brain nagged at her, like always, telling her that she didn't have to do this. She could just, you know, confess her feelings to Gumball like a sane person. It was pretty obvious that Gumball liked her, and despite her best efforts, she had taken plenty of opportunities to attempt to kiss him. But there were so many things, little things, that got in the way, that prevented her from just spilling the beans like she desired. Her father, for one, would never approve of their relationship, given his deep seated animosity towards anything Watterson. And as a girl, it was considered "improper", for whatever reason, to make the first move.

Most pressing, however, was the issue of what was under the shell. It was true that the Fitzgeralds had remained in their shells for multiple generations, and there had been no reliable accounts on what the true form of the antlered peanut actually looks like. Oh sure, they might be happy as a couple for a time, but what if the shell cracked? What if it broke entirely, and Gumball didn't like what he saw? What if she was a monster underneath that cute exterior? These thoughts and more always plagued her every time she tried to drum up the courage to ask Gumball out on a date.

So, of course, Penny had to keep it in. All of it. No matter how badly she wanted to agree to his marriage proposals, no matter how much she wanted to hug him in the hallways, she couldn't bring herself to spill her spaghetti. The risk of eventual rejection was just too much for her to handle, no matter how small it was. And so, the peanut deer did her best to restrain herself, and for what it's worth she put up a pretty good façade. Nobody would have suspected that she was totally crazy for Gumball. But all that pent up love had to go somewhere, and thus necessitated "Penny Time", special moments where Penny could channel all that withheld affection in a perfectly safe and totally not creepy way.

Right as the goldfish loudly proclaimed that he had the "high ground", she clicked on another link, eager for more. Here was a video where Gumball and Darwin attempted to play "extreme ping pong", only to injure themselves and break the neighbor's window. On the one hand, Penny hated seeing him get hurt, but there was just something so authentic about Gumball's injuries that it was still enjoyable to watch. Not so much the fact that she enjoyed watching people get hurt, but how it displayed his sheer tenacity and optimism in the face of adversity. In fact, if she could recall correctly, nearly all of Gumball's uploads involved him getting hurt in some way or another, and yet he persisted. Scrapes, sprains, broken glass, cardiac arrest, nothing could stop the sky-colored cat from doing what he loved: increasingly stupid stunts for the sake of amusement. That level of dedication, even to something most would consider silly, was just one of the many reasons why Penny loved him as much as she did.

Giggling to herself, Penny found it interesting that something as simple as a video on ElmoreStream could bring out so much character, yet somehow, Gumball was able to do it. Pretty much every video showed a side of him that the deer enjoyed, always something slightly different. And when that failed, she could at least admire Gumball's body. She hadn't really thought about it much, but her crush had the most adorable little flab pack on his abdomen. It made her want to poke at it.

She began clicking through videos in rapid succession, her ecstasy rapidly climbing as she received higher doses of pure, concentrated Gumball. Here was a video where Gumball ranted about showers, here was an unboxing video which was mostly spent on a quest for scissors, here part three of a "lets play" of some bad Vietnamese translation of a popular game complete with commentary from yours truly, then something with him complaining about saxophone chihuahua, yet another video with Gumball and Darwin having a lightsaber fight…

It was almost too much for her to handle. Gumball was a high quality drug, more powerful and addictive than any tainted injection of heroin, yet sweeter than any mouthful of powdered sugar. By now, she was barely paying attention to the content of whatever video the boy was in. All she could see was Gumball. She savored every word that came out of his mouth, blissfully sighing at every cute little thing he did. Penny was so caught up in her video spree that she didn't even notice how her face was only inches away from the screen, her heart thumping so hard it covered up the sound of the video, and her deep blushing had gone on for so long that she had become totally numb to it.

And then it happened; she was finally overwhelmed. Penny had reached a climax in her Gumball spree, completely overloaded with happiness and affection towards the azure cat. She couldn't just sit here watching him, torturing herself by having her heart's desire behind a screen. No, this wasn't a strong enough way to vent her feelings, not anymore, she was going to burst if she kept this up. In one swift motion, almost as if in a trance, she leaped off her chair and towards her bed, grabbing her pillow and hugging it with a crushing embrace that would probably leave its recipient with a broken spine.

"Oooooh Gummy…" she cooed, completely forgoing any sense of subtlety or restraint, for now was not the time for either of those things. "I cant hold back anymore! I know our love is forbidden by the heavens, but I don't care! The divine rage of hateful Juno cannot contain me forever!"

She leaped again, off the bed and landing perfectly on the soft carpet floor of her room. Holding the pillow as tightly as ever, the peanut deer spun around with it in a couple of circles, showering it with affection and praise as though it were the incarnation of Gumball himself. "Oooh, I wish I could confess my feelings to you!" she gushed, planting multiple kisses upon the pillow as she pressed it against her face, trying her best to imagine the warm embrace of Gumball's lips. "I love you so much! I love you I love you I love you!" Her sheer level of infatuation was causing her to overheat, and were she in a better state of mind she might have worried about singeing the pillow with the warmth of her love, or at the very least getting it all sweaty. Which, mind you, it totally was. "Hold me tightly in your arms and tell me you love me back! Carry me romantically through a field of molten lava! Become my knight in shining armor! Bury your face in popcorn with me, I don't know! Just please-"

"Penny, what are you doing?"

Aaaaaaaaaand it was gone. Penny froze in place, and in an instant, all those waves of happiness were gone upon hearing the voice of her little sister, now completely replaced with dread. To make things even worse, not only had her little sister been watching the most embarrassing moments of "Penny Time", but it looked like her mom had been eavesdropping as well. All she could do was remain motionless, a deer caught in the headlights of judgmental eyes.

"Honestly, sweetie" said Mrs Fitzgerald, breaking the silence with a nervous chuckle. "I leave the house for five minutes, and you go completely nuts. And not in the normal peanut sort of way."

Penny could barely bring herself to speak, the words choking back in her mouth. "H-how long have-"

"Long enough."

"Aaaaaaand, if you don't let me play video games with you today" added Polly, for good measure, "then I'm going to tell everyone at school that my big sister is in love with Gumball!"

Penny dropped the pillow and let out a groan. _Next time,_ she thought, _I'm going to block the door with furniture._ And thus ended another blissful round of "Penny Time". Perhaps one day, she could finally overcome her anxiety and tell Gumball how she felt, but until then, bottling up all her emotions and releasing them in bursts in private was the next best thing.


End file.
